U.S. stocks moved higher in early Friday trading as investors looked to rebound from a difficult October with eyes on a crucial jobs report heading into next week's presidential elections and Federal Reserve policy meeting.
Updated 9:36 AM EDT
Cold November gain
The S&P 500 added 28 points, or 0.53% to kick-off trading for the month of November, with the Nasdaq rising 108 points, or 0.6%.
The Dow rose 236 points, boosted in part by Amazon, to trade just south of the 42,000 point mark while the mid-cap Russell 2000 rose 16 points 0.73%.
"We’re in the midst of a hectic stretch with economic data, earnings, the Fed, and the US election," said Bret Kenwell, U.S investment analyst at eToro. "There’s been some additional — and understandable — volatility around these events, but so far nothing has changed the big-picture view."
"The US appears to be on solid footing with the jobs market, the economy, and earnings — all three of which are instrumental to the stock market," he added. "Until that changes, the long-term drivers of the bull market remain intact."
Updated 9:11 AM EDT
Amazon boost
Amazon shares are set to open with a market value well above $2 trillion Friday following a solid set of third quarter earnings for the retail and tech giant, which sits in all three major U.S. stock benchmarks, that justified its massive capital spending in AI technologies.
Generative AI is a really unusually large, maybe once-in-a-lifetime type of opportunity," CEO Andy Jassy told investors last night. "And I think our customers, the business, and our shareholders will feel good about this long term that we're aggressively pursuing it."
Amazon shares were marked 6.9% higher in premarket trading to indicate an opening bell price of $199.25 each, just shy of its intra-day record high of $201.20.
The economy added only 12,000 new jobs last month, the Labor Department reported, as a strike at Boeing BA and storms in Florida and the southeast added to a what is already a cooling labor market.
Average hourly earnings in October rose 0.4% from prior-month levels and were up 4% on an annual basis, with both tallies matching Wall Street forecasts. The headline unemployment rate, however, held at 4.1%
U.S. stock futures pared earlier gains following the data release, with the S&P 500 now called 25 points higher and the Nasdaq priced for a 115 point advance and the Dow for a 155 point gain.
Benchmark 10-year Treasury note yields fell 7 basis points to 4.241% following the data release while rate-sensitive 2-year notes fell 13 basis points to 4.081%.
Updated 7:59 AM EDT
Slick profits
Chevron (CVX) and Exxon Mobil (XOM) both posted stronger-than-expected third quarter earnings as the two oil majors benefited from higher global prices and production increases.
Chevron's profits fell by around 20% compared to last year, but at $4.53 billion still topped Street forecasts, while Exxon benefited from what CEO Darren Woods called "record levels of demand" to generate a bottom line of $8.6 billion.
Exxon shares were marked 2% higher at $119.15 in premarket while Chevron gained 2.1% to indicate an opening bell price of $151.90 each.
Stock Market Today
Stocks ended lower on Thursday, extending an October decline that snapped a five-month winning streak for the major benchmarks defined by the biggest selloff in U.S. Treasurys for at least two years.
A slate of disappointing earnings from Magnificent 7 tech giants added to the market's angst, although a solid update last night from Amazon (AMZN) could offset a muted iPhone 16 sales outlook from Apple (AAPL) heading into the start of Friday trading.
However, with a key October payroll looming, and next week's headline risks - including a deadlocked election race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump - looming, market-volatility gauges are showing Wall Street fear levels at multimonth highs.
A modest tick higher in inflation pressures, as well as a solid job market, has traders rethinking their Fed rate forecasts heading into next week's policy meeting in Washington.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
CBOE Group's VIX index was marked 11.1% higher in after-hours trading at $22.61, a level that suggests daily swings for the S&P 500 of around 1.4%, or 80 points, over the next month.
The MOVE index, a similar gauge for the bond market, was pegged at its highest levels of the year as benchmark 10-year Treasury yields tested a key level of 4.3% heading into today's October jobs report.
Analysts expect the Labor Department to show that around 106,000 new jobs were created last month, less than half the 254,000 recorded in September thanks in part to the twin hurricanes that hammered Florida and the southeast last month.
Global oil prices were also on the move, rising nearly $2 per barrel and lifting WTI crude futures well past the $70 mark, following reports that suggest Iran is preparing a military strike on Israel as the region's military tensions escalate.
Brent crude contracts for January delivery, the global pricing benchmark, were last seen $1.88 higher at $74.70 per barrel.
Heading into the start of the trading day on Wall Street, futures contracts tied to the S&P 500, which ended October with a 0.99% decline, are priced for a modest 16 point opening bell gain.
The tech-focused Nasdaq, which fell 0.52% last month is priced for a 75 point bump while the Dow Jones Industrial Average is called 80 points higher.
Amazon shares, which sit in all three major benchmarks, were one of the most active names in the premarket, rising 6.2% to $197.75 after a better-than-expected third-quarter earnings report that included a solid outlook for retail sales.
Apple, meanwhile, fell around 1% to $223.73 after its better-than-expected fiscal-fourth-quarter earnings were clouded in part by a muted revenue forecast and questions about the pace of demand for the new iPhone 16.
Intel (INTC) shares were marked 5.6% higher at $22.75 after the troubled chipmaker posted the largest net loss in company history, tied in part to accounting changes, but forecast solid gains for its PC and server business over the coming months.
In overseas markets, Europe's Stoxx 600 was marked 0.47% higher in early Frankfurt trading, with Britain's FTSE 100 up 0.48% in London.
Overnight in Asia, hawkish rate comments from the Bank of Japan lead to a firmer yen, which held down export stocks and pulled the Nikkei 225 into a 2.6% loss for the session.
The regional MSCI ex-Japan benchmark, meanwhile, got a boost from China-based stocks to rise 0.17% into the close of trading.
